By Bryan Schwartzman
During class time, kids sometimes craft paper airplanes. But at three Queens school districts instead of tossing them at an unsuspecting teacher, students are encouraged to experiment with flight dynamics as part of a York College program.
Paper airplanes are probably the least impressive aspect of a $200,000 NASA-sponsored facility at York College, aimed at raising the interest of public school children, particularly minorities, in the sciences.
On Nov. 2, the SEMAA (Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy) Steering Committee organized a breakfast in honor of more than 80 students who completed the inaugural program in July.
Students and their parents from Districts 27, 28, and 29 were bused from York College to the Citibank building in Long Island City, where they talked about what is was like to learn on a NASA-designed flight simulator or learn the physics of flight on a computer-operated wind tunnel.
